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The U.S. May Have to Rethink Its Approach to North Korea

A year of intense diplomacy, including the first summit between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader, has helped dial back tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

A second summit is now being planned for late February between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. But so far diplomacy has yielded little on one of Mr. Trump’s top foreign-policy priorities: Mr. Kim appears no more willing to give up his nuclear program than he was before engagement began more than a year ago.

On Jan. 1, Mr. Kim said in a New Year’s address, without elaborating, that he isn’t producing nuclear weapons. But he offered no suggestion that he was willing to discuss his existing arsenal, and he repeated demands for sanctions relief from the U.S.

In December, North Korea said it wouldn’t give up its nuclear arsenal unless the U.S. first removed nuclear threats in any “areas from where the Korean Peninsula is targeted.”